Law enforcement and the military-exploring restorative justice rather than punitive justice

Social service agencies-from day care to drug treatment

Couples, families and communities-life skills for healing and connection

NVC in Southeast Asia

In India, whose caste, religious and civil conflicts go back thousands of years, CNVC began to offer training in 1992 to parents, teachers and peace activists. Several CNVC trainers are now continuing the work.

In Malaysia NVC training helped the indigenous people of the peninsula, the Orang-Asli, to use peaceful, yet assertive ways to encounter the corporations wanting to clear cut their land.

In Sri Lanka, Father Chris Rajendram has created Peace Home, an orphanage staffed by NVC-trained volunteers. Father Chris coordinates CNVC work in Southeast Asia.

In Pakistan NVC skills were taught to tribal groups in an Afghan refugee camp by visiting trainers.

The Middle East

Israeli and Palestinian educators trained in NVC are determined to continue to work together to support reconciliation. The Israel minister of education has incorporated NVC into Israeli schools as part of a violence prevention program, resulting in several hundred school programs, as well as reaching one thousand kindergarten classes. The NVC teaching team has worked with police officers, business leaders, and hospitals, as well as Palestinian religious leaders in Ramallah and families suffering from the traumas of war and occupation. NVC is reaching all sectors of society in Israel"secular, religious, ultra-Orthodox, and Arab.

Western Europe

CNVC has been active in Western Europe for almost twenty years. Recent examples are: a school in Sweden based on NVC principles; in Switzerland with executives from Volvo and Swissair; in France with health care and the governments anti-drug program; in Ireland with peace activists and children traumatized by civil war; schools in Italy; and with diverse populations in Austria, Italy, Portugal, Denmark, Germany, Belgium, Finland, Netherlands, Norway, and UK.

In North America

CNVCs birthplace now has dozens of trainers offering on-going training in both the United States and Canada, to schools, businesses, social service agencies, health care in homes and hospitals, prisons, religious organizations, and families. NVC has been used to resolve tensions between gang members and police, drug abusers and social workers, labor unions and management.

CNVC Projects

"Whether we are working with a business or a country in great turmoil, the process is similar..... first we identify who in a country or organization is open to our work, and expose them to its potential. Then we train them in the process itself. Finally, there is the hard work of actual mediation and conflict resolution."
-Marshall B. Rosenberg

Latin America

Jorge Rubio has worked with police, youth groups, families, and many social service agencies all struggling to stem the violence in Colombia. This year he plans to travel to Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, and Mexico to start regional NVC networks.

Freedom Project

From prisoners to peacemakers: Lucy Leu, in the Seattle WA, area, has developed a team of trainers who provide NVC training to prison inmates and continuing work with those who have been released. Three returnees have joined the team of trainers, going back into prisons to teach these life-saving skills to other inmates.

Eastern Europe

Eva Rambala has designed a three year program to develop an Eastern Europe training team capable of training national teams to spread NVC in ever-widening circles. Key people have been identified in Bosnia, Serbia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and in the former Soviet Union states of Russia, Georgia, and Ukraine.

Africa

Dunia Hategekimana, a Rwandan now living in the UK, heads our African project. With French as the common language, he is working with a team of Belgian trainers to teach NVC skills to African refugees. He is making contacts to develop teams of trainers in Senegal, Ghana, Burundi, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria and South Africa.

Nada Ignjatovic-Savic, coordinator of NVC work in Serbia, and Dunia Hategekimana,coordinator of CNVC's African project, at our international conference in Sweden attended by trainers, organizers, and people from 15 countries interested in developing NVC projects and regional teams.

Back in 1993 Marshall Rosenberg began the first stages of introducing NVC in Rwanda and Burundi. Despite bitter tribal conflicts, he identified and trained both Hutus and Tutsis. But peacemaking is often slow and painstaking, and in 1994 violence in Rwanda overtook the nascent peace process.

Ten years later, Dr. Mary Mukandongo now lives with her children in Montreal, Canada, where she works with African refugees. This is part of her story.

"I belong to both of the Rwandese ethnic groups, by blood and by marriage, which made me lost as to what position I was to take. I am a Tutsi and was married to a Hutu, and then a victim of both sides"Hutu killing my family in the genocide and then Tutsi killing my husband, who was committed to Nonviolent Communication.

It is by looking at the feelings and needs of each side that I have seen the conflict differently and have been able to experience real healing. My view of healing, reconciliation, and conflict resolution in Rwanda is through recognizing the two parties as having feelings and needs which have been suppressed, with only judgments and blame coming out, leading to the massacres.

When we are able to use the compassionate language of Nonviolent Communication and come to the level of our feelings and needs, and are able to make our requests to each other, I feel from personal experience that reconciliation can take place."
-Dr. Mary Mukandongo

Social Change Project

Miki Kashatan is working hard to build synergistic connections to organizations that share our vision, offering NVC supporters opportunities to network at social change conferences, writing articles for publication, and managing the social change email forum.

Parenting Project

Inbal Kashtan writes, leads workshops and speaks about parenting with NVC at conferences, sharing with people the personal and social transformation that changing child-rearing practices can engender. The NVC parenting online egroup she developed offers mutual support for parents who are committed to transmitting a culture of peace to the next generation. She has recently published a booklet, "Parenting from Your Heart.

The International Intensive Trainings (IITs)

International intensive trainings, begun in 1994, bring together people from all over the world eager to immerse themselves in the spirit of NVC. Marshall Rosenberg and other certified trainers offer participants the unique opportunity to live in a world of compassionate connection for nine days. CNVC is committed to expanding access to these trainings. See Training Information.

Media and Education

As described above, the Center has always worked with teachers, schools and families. We also have a number of books, pamphlets, audiotapes, and videotapes on Nonviolent Communication for children and adults. We are currently exploring the possibility of mass media, such as educational television and the Internet, as a vehicle for teaching the skills of Nonviolent Communication. Such media can offer us the potential to touch countless additional lives.

"I feel grateful and glad that this level of connection is traveling the globe and I want every human being to have this gift."
-a thank-you letter to a CNVC certified trainer in Italy